Sustainability Accounting: Can Accountants Make the Planet Safer?

What is sustainability accounting? This emerging field extends accounting beyond just economic performance. It may include a whole range of issues, including environmental impact, labor practices, product responsibility, human rights, and community involvement. Today's world has increasingly complex and serious environmental and social issues. Business managers of today need to respond to regulatory requirements as well as demands for social responsibility.

Contemporary accounting information systems will need to contribute to solving environmental and social problems through enhanced disclosure and credibility. Sustainability accounting provides a framework for developing measures of environmental and social performance, assessing their reliability, assisting business managers in strategic and operational decisions that affect risks and costs, and reporting results to various stakeholders.

This program will provide students with a comprehensive overview of sustainability accounting in business organizations, with a focus on accountability, accounting, and reporting within mandatory (e.g., Securities and Exchange Commission filings) and voluntary (e.g., free-standing sustainability reports) frameworks. Students will examine triple bottom line reporting, which highlights the economic, environmental, and social performance of an organization. Students will learn how sustainability issues are identified; how their economic, environmental, and social effects are measured; and how these impacts are communicated to external stakeholders. In addition, students will examine the sustainability reporting process, regulation of sustainability reporting, and the role of third-party verification in providing external assurance of sustainability reports.

A general knowledge of the underlying theory and application of financial and managerial accounting concepts. Students who have taken programs such as Business Entrepreneurship Fundamentals or Financial Heartland, or college-level financial and/or managerial accounting, will be well prepared for this program. Familiarity with Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet software is recommended.

Online learning:

Hybrid Online Learning - This offering delivers < 25% of its instruction online, rather than via face-to-face contact between you and your instructors.

Prerequisites

A general knowledge of the underlying theory and application of financial and managerial accounting concepts. Students who have taken programs such as Business Entrepreneurship Fundamentals or Financial Heartland, or college-level financial and/or managerial accounting, will be well prepared for this program. Familiarity with Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet software is recommended.

Spring Registration

Course Reference Numbers

So - Sr (16): 30366

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